


When This Cruel War is Over

by Maidenjedi



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 12:47:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2151273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth receives a visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When This Cruel War is Over

**Author's Note:**

> Paige is pretty young still in this, and I probably break some rules to make the timeline fit, but bear with me.

The Cold War is over, or so say the papers and the talking heads. 

-

She is finished at the Academy, a young cadet but a promising one. She passed her sharpshooting test the first time, the only one in her class. She feels confident in her jacket, and she carries a weapon. Not that one, though, not yet, but she is her mother's daughter. 

She buys a paper from the stand at the gas station. Below fold, much smaller than the hyperbolic headline, is one about Nicaraguan refugees. 

The war wouldn't be over for a long time yet. Not really. She sighs and heads back to her car.

-

The day is bright for November, but the prison walls appear to suck in the light, holding it hostage. Everything fades to a dull black-and-white once she crosses the property line. 

She was fifteen when they told her, sixteen when he died, and almost eighteen when she was locked up here. 

She's been here just once, to bring Henry and let him cry and grieve and wail. They'd always lied to him, never told him the truth, and these days he is further away than even his sister with her resources can reach. If he'd come here since that day, she would know.

-

She relinquishes her weapon at the gate, and rolls the paper with the banner headline in her hand. The guard raises an eyebrow and she sighes, unrolling the paper so he can see it conceals nothing.

He asks for her badge and she rolls her eyes, but shows it to him. He nods and taps the paper, says something appropriately patriotic that may be his way of telling her they are similar. She very much doubts it, and demurs and asks to proceed. He shrugs, pushes the button to unlock the door, and she walks into another world.

-

There.

Elizabeth Jennings - so she insisted she be called, even now, even here - sits on the other side of a glass partition, her gray hair cropped short. Her face is all sharp angles, as ever, but somehow sharper here. The light, the diet. It's not a flattering look.

She sits. She stares ahead and Elizabeth offers a wry smile, more akin to a grimace. Elizabeth picks up the phone, and her softer, ruddier mirror image does likewise.

"Well?" says Elizabeth, and the woman balls her left fist. Her nails cut into her hand. Did she expect platitudes, small talk? When had this women - her mother - ever been more than blunt, truly?

"It's over." She spreads the newspaper's front page and presses it awkwardly to the glass. Behind it, Elizabeth's face falls, her eyes filling as she takes in the image of protesting East Berliners taking sledgehammers to the Wall.

Elizabeth schools her face just enough, so that Paige - if that was even what she called herself anymore - would not see her tears.

Paige was never good at concealing her emotions, and satisfaction shines from her eyes. She looks at Elizabeth, and the trembling chin of one does not move the other at all.

"It's over. You lost." Paige hangs up, leaves the paper on the table, and gets up. Her eyes never leave her mother's face.

She turns, her back to Elizabeth, and the yellow F.B.I. on her jacket acts as her final goodbye.


End file.
